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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016558">I Told The Stars About You</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Almonde/pseuds/Almonde'>Almonde</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Tenet (2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:20:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,179</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016558</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Almonde/pseuds/Almonde</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>But how can you know all that I have told the stars?</p>
<p>Everything about you.</p>
<p>(ENG translation)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Neil &amp; The Protagonist (Tenet), Neil/The Protagonist (Tenet)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I Told The Stars About You</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">


        <li>
            A translation of

            <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29016504">I Told The Stars About You</a> by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Almonde/pseuds/Almonde">Almonde</a>.
        </li>

    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>I told the stars about you.</p>
<p>I have climbed mountains covered by dense forests and lifted my hand as if I could pick the stars scattered in the night sky, and to put them in a box on your pillow one night; I have stood on calm seashores and let the salty waves crash on the sandy reefs, listening to the sound of the waves as I gazed at the dull and twinkling stars of the northern hemisphere; I have climbed countless stairs just to see through the telescope of the observatory the constellations you pointed out to me in your books, so that the image of those bright stars would be etched in my memory.</p>
<p>But how can you know all that I have told the stars?</p>
<p>Everything about you.</p>
<p>I tell them about your eyes. The grey-blue colour of a rainy Parisian day, the drops of water sliding down the window, you catching them with your fingertips, leaning lazily against the wall, watching how they wobble and sway, then sticking out your tongue to lick your fingers, as if trying to taste the rain, even though it is just a perfectly ordinary drop. But that's you, with the ability to turn all the uninteresting, even insignificant, simplicity of the everyday into a miraculous glow. Sometimes your eyes are a quiet lake that ripples when I kiss your lips; sometimes your eyes are more like the Milky Way this evening, but shining brighter than the stars and the moon, where strange ideas and inspirations are found shimmering in your eyes from nowhere, and then you rest your head on my shoulder and gesture to tell me one by one about these sudden ideas.</p>
<p>I tell them about your blonde hair. The fine strands of hair fell on your forehead, and the not too strong afternoon sunlight shone on them, tinting the original deep gold colour to an almost blinding white, and as I approached, you looked like a god descending for the first time on earth, your brilliant blonde hair announcing who you were. If we could be those Greek gods that exist only in the songs of the bards, we would not need to be bound by time to embrace each other in the long endlessness. The blood that flows through your body is only that of an ordinary man, but so what, I still love the messy hair you wake up with in the morning, the one or two strands that always dangle unconvincingly from your ears, and your little habit of reaching up and rubbing the top of your head when you speak. You were so protective of your blonde hair that you refused every invitation to the hairdresser until your short hair became long and held back your neck like a golden retriever's and, of course, hid those reddish hickeys behind the strands.</p>
<p>I tell them about your skin. You always had a little scruff on your white cheeks, and when I rubbed my fingers over that spot and let my warm breath brush against your face, that skin would quickly take on a tinge of red. On hot summer days you always stand on the terrace in a thin shirt, your bare arms and legs so white and smooth that one can't help but want to leave some kind of mark on them. But I know the marks that lie beneath the clothing, the signs of the battlefield, the images left by the gunfire, the memories that cannot be erased. You have a bullet-riddled wound on your shoulder, barely visible after the passage of time, except for the small patch of slightly darkened skin and the soreness caused by the rainy weather. That was the medal you earned for deflecting a surprise attack from behind me, but next time, I'd prefer I was the one who took the bullet for you. At least, until that day.</p>
<p>I tell them about your lips. Typically British-owned thin lips, pursed into a thin line when you're serious, then subconsciously wetted with the tip of your tongue to make them soft and moist. You like to use that mint flavoured lip balm, so when I kiss your lips, the coolness escapes between your gasps and wafts into the air around you. Letting those broken utterances escape from between your lips, you look to me, sitting at the end of the bed, touching your slender fingertips to lips so red they look like they're dripping blood, but the corners of your mouth are curled in a familiar smile, charming and content. Your small, soft laugh when you hear something funny echoes in my ears, and when I turn my head again, you flash me that smile that belongs only to lovers, and then you get up and brush against my collar again, asking for more kisses.</p>
<p>Those stars still twinkle in the night, and I, for one, have too many words and memories.</p>
<p>Your long fingers, your husky voice, your trembling eyelashes.</p>
<p>The shirts and suits you loved made by the old tailors on Savile Row; the milk and black tea you used to drink at breakfast and a vodka tonic with ice and lime in the evening; the physics books and Shakespearean sonnets you read on long holidays stacked in a corner of your bedroom, and the verses you once whispered beside me eternally etched in my heart. You said that eternity would destroy everything, that every moment we spent together, every kiss, every word of love, they would be buried in time and scattered to the corners of the universe in fragments.</p>
<p>Time will take everything.</p>
<p>No, I shook my head and kissed the corner of your mouth again, stopping you from murmuring more. Even if everything we have will fade away in the future, swept away by the dark blue waves, erasing all marks, and we will meet in the air as adjacent foam and dust in the morning sun of a new day. I kept you as long as I could, though you and I were open to the finality of the end.</p>
<p>I tell the stars all about you, for they will continue to glow, burn, collapse, explode, and be born again from the nebula, and the cycle will repeat itself, again and again. Each particle traveling through time and space to carry our memories, and they will never fade away, and billions of years will not take away my love for you. Let those kisses and entanglements between lovers be deposited in the stars, so that when you leave me and run to an end I cannot stop, those eternal planets will send you our final goodbyes.</p>
<p>But I wonder if, as you stand on the soil of Siberia, with the blazing sun and drifting snow pushing you into the cold underground, you too will look up, as I do, to the stars hidden in the nothingness.</p>
<p>Will you hear, as I stand in the darkness of the night, the last words I leave to the star-filled sky.</p>
<p>I love you, Neil.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>-</p>
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